Earlimart/Siggy/Voxhaul Broadcast/Light FM at the Echoplex, 5/17/08

I got to the Echoplex around nine, and it was shockingly easy to get into the venue: no line, and no bouncer searching my groin area for switchblades, though he did act like I was a total moron for trying to give him my ticket before showing him my ID. Guess I had the order wrong.

Light FM (god, I wish they’d change their name to “Hat FM”) were on stage when I came in. Their radio promo moniker was actually quite fitting—their songs all had the same tired indie rock arrangements we’ve heard on the radio for the last four years, not exactly bedazzling the two-dozen early birds sipping their vodka and Red Bulls. The keyboardist distinguished herself with a couple interesting melody lines, but otherwise I felt Light FM were trying desperately to appeal to my demographic by riffing on just the right two chords, and it was not to be.
Siggy were up next, and though they wear their age on their sleeves (but hey, they all have Ph.D.’s and just do this as a hobby), they were probably my favorites of the night. Galen, their singer, has a heart-wrenching voice reminiscent of Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell, Alan Vega, or just about any of your Max’s Kansas City types. Yet there’s a vibrato there and power and a pain that really seemed to touch even the most jaded sweater-vest collector in the audience. Just when I thought their thudding bass and percolating guitar sounds veered a little too far into U2 territory, the groove shifted into almost a Raw Power direction, and finally they even did a splendid cover of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” Galen’s cat-growls mewing to a halt mid-word almost like Darby Crash. Good stuff.

Voxhaul Broadcast played next. Thin, tattered Live Aid T-shirt, big hair, good looking guys. But they kept serving up tunes like indie iceberg lettuce, with no flavor to distinguish one from the next. Guys, if I can’t remember any of your songs, I can’t review you.

Finally Earlimart played, and all the partygoers in the smoke hole outside came in to join the throng and watch, including Adam Goldberg and his breathtakingly gorgeous arm candy. The watchwords of the evening were “vocal harmonies”—either the PA or the sound man at the Echoplex has gotten a lot better, so you could really hear Aaron and Ariana’s voices blending together as smooth as butter. Sometimes, when men and women harmonize, the two different timbres of vocal chord sound disparate, but not here. Each song allowed Ariana’s melancholy to accentuate Aaron’s yearning, and when it was good, it was great.

The instrumentation was pretty impressive, too. I guess they’ve gotten over their flirtation with backup orchestras, because last night they played their complex arrangements with just four people, Ariana sometimes abandoning her bass (No bass! The Doors had no bass! You see, the gypsies had no homes!) to become a dueling keyboardist. Whoever the other keyboardist was, he was pretty awesome as well, and either he or Aaron kept triggering weird interstitial music between songs, sometimes full samples of classical-sounding ditties, and other times just the emanating repetition of whooshing echoey machine noises in a metallic loop. And Aaron let himself stretch out on the guitar, ending three or four songs with a blistering guitar crescendo quite a bit more rockin’ than the meat of most of their songs.

Aaron practically apologized for playing primarily new stuff—the show was kind of a test-run for touring behind their upcoming album, Hymn and Her, which meant I didn’t recognize most of the songs. In fact, at one point, Aaron started singing “Where the Streets Have No Name,” and I thought “oh no, please tell me they don’t do a U2 cover on the new album!” But it was all a joke, and they instead jumped into another beautiful love song.

For an encore, they let Ariana sing “Happy Alone,” an older track on which she sings lead and pretty much plays the whole song herself, just piano with a bit of guitar and Aaron’s background vocals in the mix. It made me wish they’d give her more of a spotlight—she has a dark and lovely voice, not Joan Baez’s by any means, but evocative of the same kind of hope and sadness ol’ Joanie had. In fact, the whole show, I was pretty much concentrating on her. She seemed to be having the most fun, yet her voice conveyed the most pain. Here’s hoping the band gets even sparser so that she can shine a little more in the mix.

After the last note rang out, I virtually dashed out the door and followed the pied piper pilgrimage under the bridge, across Glendale Blvd, and up the piss-soaked cement staircase to Sunset to go to the Echo proper. I have no idea why the Echoplex makes you do that, when they have a perfectly good staircase connecting the two clubs indoors that they instead rope off and put eight security guards around. But whatever, I needed the exercise after my three Jamesons on the rocks.

Hang the DJ’s at the Echo was theoretically spinning all nineties music, which was fun to dance to. But I noticed that as they started edging deeper and deeper into the eighties stuff, a lot more people hit the dance floor, which I think says something about the nineties as a decade. I wish they’d played some early nineties techno (how perfect would Alpha Team’s “Speed Racer” be at a time like this?), but I think that’s just me showing that I’m an old geezer who shouldn’t be dancing at all-ages clubs anyhow.

There is a great deal of response to this article and that’s good, it served its purpose. Earlimart put me to sleep. With a reasonable crowd for the empty feeling echoplex, I listened intently to hear something good. and yet the somber voices and light keys just droned on without any spark of something original. Earlimart seemed to be riding the coat tails of staple LA based indie bands like the great northern, silversun pickups and elliot smith. And yet, their cheap imitation sets them apart from bands going for a creative sound. Bands our freind Dan probably doesn’t enjoy.

Wait I’m listening to Happy alone, and I need to add the Submarines to the list of LA Bands Earlimart imitates. This band probably takes themselves a bit too seriously, they’re like a boring road film. I won’t go as far to say as they are awful, but they are old and they’ve been in business 9 years now, released 6 albums and none have recieved much attention. I mean 9 years of commitment to something and you should be able to get a review out in SPIN and pitchfork.

I’m damn sure there is a small niche of people that appreciate this gut wrenching melodramatic pop music and they probably have Say Hi as one of their top fav bands. I like Say Hi, I didn’t like this, and I’d take why not or backrooms anyday.

In fact I’m listening to Siggy and they sound like they would be a great live show. can anyone not Dan back that up?

I’m sure they have a lot of home support in their comfy little silver lake town and I’m sure this isn’t the first time Dan has raved about his friends

hmmm yess..shallow and pedantic. i know voxhaul personally and grew up with them. Theyve turned down money well over what this intellectual masturbatory toolbag ever hopes to attain. Far from sell-outs. Youre a frat boy in a pseudo cerebral hipster attire. meaning, you look and act the part of something youre so desperatley trying to set yourself apart from. and homophobic? no ones from vb is a gayhater. of course if you turn a gay down in la all of a sudden youre a gay basher. grow up and outside yourself. fag. oooooooo. whats next?? i might say nigger!? go read some nietzsche.

Opinions, as Dan rather eloquently expressed, need no references, can be well written when drunk (as is the case with most of our best critics) and will, as Nadia suggests, earn credibility with time. Factual statements, such as you imply when you state VB has popularity rising “at a crazy pace,” do require references.

I am telling you people, VB is Karl Rove. Not only are they homophobic and dismissive of ‘tards’ it is now clear they have their very own spin doctors who they call Nadia. Watch out Radio Free Silver Lake!

Like anyone is going to take any notice of the word of a writer who talks about himself excessively and ends his review basically saying he was drunk and was probably too uncool to get the tastes of music lovers today anyway. One word dude…Credibility…earn it.

Voxhaul Broadcast are a 4-piece from CA who make a soul infused British rock sound. Their songs mesh melody with mash-up to create a set of memorable tracks including The Echo, Why Not and Too Much Thinking.

If their music is as unmemorable as you stated then it must be the big hair and tattered Live Aid T-shirt that is rooting these guys in the music scene and seeing their popularity rise at a crazy pace.

so many posts. nice review for the simple fact that it inspired people to do something. even if arguing on a blog, it’s a reaction. now i’m pissed i didn’t go. just so i could argue too. hehe. i think you all should listen to BON IVER. that’s my input. xoxo.

“some kids with hair and t-shirts that are trying really, really hard to sell out”

You have to wonder at reviewers who still use the expression “selling-out” as a call for criticism. What does this even mean? It’s generally something a pretentious snob throws around when other people start liking one of their favorite obscure bands, no longer making the snob feel special and in the know.

Your beloved Earlimart is not exactly “experimental,” and I imagine they have sold a number of records… could one also accuse them of the same?

I think as a reviewer you need to reach for more insightful criticism than talk of “selling out” and “fuck those guys they look fashionable and attractive.”

I think Dan got it totally wrong. I was at the show and thought Voxhaul Broadcast played a great rocking set. It was Earlimart that served up the boring indie iceberg lettuce, to my disappointment. And btw Dan, no one cares if you review a show or not.

This banter may come across as a bunch of nanner-nanner, suck my dick, pretty boy homophobes but that misses the point. Beyond the facade of the frat boy vocabulary a much more ambitious agenda emerges. Look carefully at how they demonize the anti-market tendencies implicit in t shirt giveaways, adroitly linking this to mental disability and homosexuality. It is apparent! Voxhaul Broadcast is Karl Rove and I am terrified. Today Losanjealous, tomorrow Radio Free Silver Lake.

if this is the dan i think it is, he has sucked ever since he wrote for the daily bruin.

voxhaul is good and has a chance of breaking out of 200 person former guatemalan discos and onto a larger stage. yes, a few their songs sound pretty similar but they have a really cool, pretty original sound that dan didn’t cover in his review because he was trying to be cool. would have been nice to see some solid comments on an up and coming band then going for a couple of hipster points.

oh jesus give it a rest fool. he didn’t even write a good or bad review of your precious “VB” – as if the band is known as that anywhere other than your inbox – just said he couldn’t remember the songs because they all sounded alike. which is probably true. you guys are blowing it out of proportion, chill out. 3 comments in a row = dude is obviously worked up needlessly and needs to stop reading blogs

how the hell are vb sell outs? they came on played a good show and that was that. while on the other hand siggy does a shitty cover wich you fucking loved for some god awfull reason and then threw out free shirts. its really unfair to write a bad review for a band that didnt deserve it while on the other hand talkin up a band that will never be anything more than a shitty opening band.

6 months isnt older. dont go around thinking your the shit cause you write for some horrible site. you dont know much about music and its obvious in your writing style. youre just like every other fuck music blogger who goes to shows gets drunk and gives some shitty opinion and compares bands to other bands cause you dont know any more than what you learned in your online writing class. comparing ariana to joan baez too wow you’re deep and your brain has many wrinkles.

Oh “dude,” how I wish you were a character in a Coen Brothers film and not a man-child with no knowledge of capital letters and apostrophes.

“Happy Alone” ain’t old, it’s just “older”–verbs come in all forms, and this one was comparative, not superlative. Most of Earlimart’s set was from the new album, so I wanted to stress that this song was a recognizable treat for the audience and not a new-fangled song they might not be used to.

As for Siggy–well, tastes may vary, and they certainly are not my favorite band of all time. And I tried not to suck their cocks to the point of fruition–I actually felt bad for calling them old rock hobbyists who sometimes sounded too much like U2. But I think it’s to their credit that they can practice on occasional nights and weekends, when they’re not taking kids to soccer practice or whatever, and still sing and play better than some kids with hair and t-shirts that are trying really, really hard to sell out.

vb was actually the best opening band. good job sucking off siggy even though they were horrible and not even better than another band named using the same name, which i have no idea how that happens. anyway horrible review. also i cant give an accurate comment on your review if your article is retarded so you should work on that. happy alone was just from their last album so i don’t know how you think thats old. gayness…

Nice description of Ariana and Aaron’s work together–particularly hoe important Ariana is to their sound. As much as some people try to dismiss Earlimart as an Elliot Smith remake they are increasingly standing out as a rock duo.